A new study from Lean In and McKinsey finds exactly how much more likely men are to get promoted than women

New research by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co. yields some
disturbing findings about women's prospects for advancement in
the workplace.

Though women and men say they want to be
promoted in about equal numbers (75% and 78% respectively), women
are significantly less likely to make it to the next tier in
their organization.

Across all organizational levels, the study found that
women are a whopping 15% less likely than men to get
promoted. The researchers say that, at this rate, it
will take more than a century to achieve gender parity in the
C-suite.

The study looked at data on promotion and
attrition rates and other aspects of career paths at 118 North
American companies. Researchers also surveyed nearly 30,000 men
and women about their attitudes around gender diversity in the
workplace.

Here are some other key results:

Fewer women than men are
aiming for the very top. Among senior managers,60% of women said they want
to be a top executive, compared to 72% of
men. Women were also more likely to cite
stress and pressure as one of the biggest reasons for not
wanting to hold top positions.

Contrary to popular belief,
women are not leaving their organizations at higher rates than
men. In fact, women in leadership aremorelikely to stay with their companies than
men. At the
senior vice president level, women are 20% less likely to
leave.Women in the
C-suite are about half as likely to leave their organizations
as men.

Women often start out in line
roles (defined as positions with profit-and-loss responsibility
and/or focused on core operations), butby the VP level more than half of women
hold staff roles(positions in functions that support the
organization like legal and IT). Men, on the other
hand, are more likely to hold line roles at every level of
an organization. This difference poses a potential problem
because line roles frequently feed into senior leadership.

There's a common
misconception that women who start families are subsequently
less ambitious in their careers. But mothers in the
survey were 15% more interested in being a top executive than
women without children.

Black, Hispanic, and Asian
women were 43% more interested in becoming a top executive than
white womenand 16%
more interested than white men.

Women
were nearly three times more likely than men to say their
gender has posed a hindrance to their career
advancement. They also said that they're
consulted less often on key decisions.

A majority (74%) of
companies said gender diversity is a top priority of their
CEO, but less than half of workers said the
same. Only a third
of employees said it's a top priority for their direct
manager.

Very few people
participate in flexibility and career-development programs
offered by their organizations. More than 90% of women
and men believe taking extended family leave will hurt their
position at work.

At every level,
women were at least nine times more likely than
men to say they do more childcare and at least four
times more likely to say they do more chores at home.

The researchers say one
solution to the problem is to institute bias
training.University of
Exeter/Flickr

These results suggest that we're far from achieving gender
equality in the workplace. Moreover, there's a clear disparity
between how women perceive their opportunities for advancement
and how their companies see it.

The researchers say one solution is to quantify
the problem. For example, companies can track key metrics such as
the number of women and men in the hiring process, promotion
rates for women and men, and women and men's satisfaction with
their roles. They also suggest setting gender targets and holding
leaders responsible for meeting them.

The researchers further recommend that
companies institute training to help employees learn about what
gender bias is and how to combat it. Men and women alike could be
unwittingly undermining their coworkers' ability to succeed at
work, and the first step to resolving this issue is making them
aware of their behavior.